


Black Dog on My Shoulder Again

by Sophia_Prester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s05e03 Free to Be You and Me, Gen, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Prester/pseuds/Sophia_Prester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam left for Stanford, he planned to leave the hunting life behind him forever. But when he stumbles into a case halfway through his sophomore year, he learns that the most frightening monster of all refuses to be left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Dog on My Shoulder Again

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for SPN Summergen, 2010. Dialogue at the beginning and at the very end is taken directly from Episode 5.03 - "Free to Be, You and Me." Although the story is technically gen, there is reference to canon Sam/Jess.
> 
> Warnings not listed above: mentions of animal cruelty.

"Okay..."

Sam knew from the way Bobby drawled the word out that he was in for it and then some. He should have just left things right there, maybe manufactured some emergency that required him to get off the phone or simply hung up without explanation, but in the end he was just a big old glutton for punishment. God knew he deserved it.

"What?"

"There a reason you're calling?"

 _You mean other than the apocalyptic omens I just finished telling you about? Isn't that reason enough to call?_ But that wasn't what Bobby meant, and Sam was far too tired to play dumb.

Up until then, the conversation had been easy enough. Even reporting the mix of fire and hail, which was pretty atypical for Oklahoma--pretty atypical for _anywhere_ \--hadn't been an issue. More than once he'd called a job in to Bobby when there wasn't any way he and Dean could get to it in time.

"Dean didn't tell you?"

Sam couldn't say any more than that. Maybe he could have if Bobby was there instead of on the other end of a phone line. It was all too easy to imagine disgust and disappointment, with recent memory staining things. Yes, Bobby had taken back everything the demon had said through him, everything and then some, but that had been after. In the moment, though...

Well, it wasn't anything he didn't deserve.

"He told me."

It was brusque, but there wasn't any judgment there. Sam wasn't sure what _was_ there, but it was something that reminded Sam that when Dean let him go, he also offered to let Sam take the Impala--and that the offer had been sincere.

The sincerity didn't matter. Dean had no way of knowing what being in the Impala was like without Dean at the wheel or snoring away in the passenger seat.

And right now, Sam needed to get as much space between himself and those days as he could.

If anything surprised him about turning down Dean's offer, it was the fact that he'd been able to do so as casually as he had.

He had been calm, for all that he was rattled down to the core. He supposed that meant something.

He'd even kept it together the other day, when a brawl broke out in the bar. A few calm words and no physical threat other than size alone, and the situation was defused. Just like that.

Lindsey had been impressed. And Sam had been more than a little pleased with himself. But...

But even now there was an echo of rage, a rush of dark and heady satisfaction as he imagined his fist connecting with the asshole's face ( _no, striking the throat, making him_ pay, _making him_ bleed...), and he shoved it back down. Hard.

It had to mean something, that he could still do that. Right?

But this...

"Yeah. So--I just thought you might want to find out who's in the area and put a man on this."

That should be enough. Dean had to have told Bobby why Sam had stepped down. The stakes were too high for Dean to just dismiss it all by joking about how Sam had just pussied out on them just like Dean had always known he would. Dean could be totally juvenile when he was worked up or upset about something, but this was different.

This time, he had simply let Sam go. No fight. No argument. No attempt to contradict or even downplay what Sam had said. Just resigned agreement that Sam couldn't be trusted. That Sam was dangerous.

 _Even at Stanford, you knew._

Jess's voice in his memory was as clear now as it was in last night's dream. He didn't look back, didn't dare look back.

 _You knew._

He didn't know what would be worse: looking back and seeing nothing, or looking back and finding her there again.

Bobby had to understand. He had to know why Sam couldn't do this. Not any more.

"Okay. Let me see if I can think of the best hunter who might be in the immediate vicinity--"

Of course not. Sam couldn't even pretend to be surprised. It was just like before.

 _Deep down, maybe, but you knew._

Just like before.

* * *

"--and I hate to say it, but it looks to me like you're it, Sam. For now, at least."

"Bobby..." Sam cleared his throat. God, he sounded like a whiny teenager. Technically he _was_ a teenager, but not for that much longer. He pitched his voice lower, not only so he wouldn't whine, but so he wouldn't be overheard. Last he checked, Luis was sound asleep in the other room, but there was no such thing as too careful. "I've been a civilian for over a year, now. I'm not a hunter anymore. I don't know if I can do this."

There was a low chuckle at the other end of the line. "Son, didn't your daddy ever tell you that there's no such thing as an ex-Marine? Hate to say it, but you could say the same thing about hunters."

Shit. Of course Bobby had to go and bring up Dad. Sam pressed hard at the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the incoming headache. It was either that or bang his head on his desk.

God damn it, how could the man still make him so fucking _angry_ when he wasn't even here?

Bobby sighed when Sam didn't answer. Sam could practically hear him reminding himself to be patient. "Look, in our line of work, there's always the chance something'll come up out of nowhere to bite you in the ass five, ten years down the line. That happens, you need to be ready to take care of it and keep other people out of the crossfire. You think you're the only hunter who's ever wanted normal, Sam? Who ever got sick of the life and tried to leave it behind?"

No. He didn't think that at all. In fact, if other hunters had left, then why couldn't he? He refused to believe that _all_ of them had failed. He was going make this work. He was going to be normal. He had to try.

In the back of his mind, Sam heard Dean's awful Yoda imitation-- _Do or do not. There is no try._

"Bobby--"

Bobby sighed. "Y'know, one of these days, your face is going to freeze like that."

That startled a laugh out of Sam. "Freeze like what?"

"I don't have to see you to know what kind of look you were giving me. Sam, I know how bad you wanted out."

"I know." He wouldn't be here if it weren't for Bobby's help in smoothing out the irregularities and patching the gaps in his paper trail. He had said 'thank you' so many times and in so many ways that to say it again now would be meaningless. "But you're not sending help? You're telling me I have to take care of this myself?"

"I didn't say that, Sam. You might want to try listening for a change. I said you're it _for now_. I got to find someone else who can get there who's not already tied up in another hunt or five states away, and you know that could take a while, even if I get word out to Ellen," he said, not bothering to explain who that was, as if it was something Sam should just know. "Meanwhile, you got to dig in and do what you can to keep anyone else from getting hurt."

The unspoken assumption that he might not stung more than he thought it would.

But that didn't mean he was still a hunter.

"Yeah. Anyhow, I'm still not sure what this thing is, but I've got some notes--"

"Notes?" Bobby sounded far too amused.

Sam winced. "Uh, yeah. Force of habit, you know?"

He pulled out the (very small, utterly disposable) memo book he'd bought for the purpose when he realized there was something going on, but before he could start reciting the facts, he heard another phone ring in the background.

"Sorry, Sam. I gotta go impersonate the DEA for a bit. Call me back this afternoon."

"Ah... four-thirty my time? Poli-sci," he said. He bit back the urge to apologize.

That got a snort of laughter. "Sure thing, Sam."

"Bye. Have fun committing a federal offense."

"Smartass." Bobby hung up.

Sam followed suit, bemused by his own reluctance to do so.

He remembered Bobby's bank of labeled phones, and wondered who might be calling them now, and why.

Before he could censor the thought, he pictured Dean, cleaned up and in a suit, smiling and charming the everloving shit out of someone now that his bona fides had been verified.

"Typical," he muttered before getting up and stalking out of his dorm.

* * *

Sam didn't need to be up at the main quad until after two, but he wolfed down an early lunch before retrieving his bike from under the arbor. It was chilly and spitting rain when he set out at an unhurried pace up Los Arboles. Once he got up to main campus, he would remember the poli-sci notes he had 'forgotten' on his desk and swing back down Campus Drive to get them.

The subterfuge probably wasn't necessary, but he still wanted a reason for his roundabout trip. A reason other than the real one, anyway.

He might not be a hunter any more, but he was a good student and a damned good researcher. Before he called Bobby back, he wanted to take another look at the area where the attacks had taken place and see if anything else jumped out at him--figuratively, he hoped. The more solid information he could pass on to whoever picked up this hunt, the faster it would all be over. That was all.

The basic facts as reported by the campus police were these: six students--all freshmen and sophomores who lived at FroSoCo--had been attacked when traveling between their dorms and main campus. Five had been heading back from the main quad after an evening class or some other event, but one was a member of the swim team who had been heading out to morning practice. In any event, all the incidents took place shortly after dusk or just before dawn.

The first three reports had been fairly cut and dried. The incidents took place in late October and early November. The victims each said they had been knocked from their bikes while riding down Los Arboles. They were then bitten by a large black dog--larger than a Rottweiler, according to a witness who had interrupted one attack mid-maul. Animal Control had looked high and low for the dog, but the only strays they turned up were small and scrawny, and any local pets who might match the description had reasonably airtight alibis.

Sam tried not to be too curious, especially when a few strange details made it through the dorm rumor mill. Dad would have been chasing after those rumors after the second attack, but Sam only started thinking about it after the third. He made a trip past the attack sites then just as he was doing now, but he didn't find anything. Of course, the heavy rains they had might have had something to do with that.

Then Thanksgiving break came and went. It came with no new attacks, and it went leaving Sam with other things to worry about.

Things like one of his best friends going completely off the rails. What with Brady deciding to chuck the whole 'clean living' thing with reckless abandon just a week before end-quarter exams, Sam soon dismissed the string of animal attacks as being just that. No one had died, and everyone should recover with no lasting physical damage beyond a few superficial scars.

Just as Sam was starting to think how it could have been worse, worse happened.

On December first, a fourth student was mauled. Sam knew the first three only in passing, but this one he knew well. Debbie Nguyen lived across the hall from him and Luis freshman year, and they were on the same hallway again this year. She wasn't a particularly close friend, but she was the sort of casual friend Sam never had the time to have before coming to Stanford.

She baked cookies for everyone on the hall every couple of weeks, just because. Every morning, she wrote a line of poetry or a song lyric on the message board by her door, and invited people to guess the source ( _Google not allowed--you're on your honor! :D_ ).

People like Debbie were not supposed to have their face ripped down to the bone by monsters. People who always waved 'hello' with both hands when they saw you should not have to know that monsters existed.

Sam went to visit her in the hospital, gritting his teeth and allowing himself to dip into the Winchester bag of tricks so he could get in after visiting hours and talk to her in private.

She was glad to see him, even with half her face masked with bandages. More than that, she was glad to have someone listen to her.

"Now _you_ probably think I'm crazy, too, don't you?" she said when she had told him as much as she could bear.

He rested a hand over hers, completely covering it. "No. I don't."

She tried to smile but it ended up a pained grimace. "You know, I actually kinda believe you when you say that."

On his way back to his dorm, Sam bought a pocket-sized memo book and wrote down everything Debbie had told him. No way was he getting this stuff mixed in with his class notes.

He kept the notebook in his back pocket. Just in case.

Victims five and six followed just two days later, one in the morning, one in the evening. Campus Police had posted a bulletin telling people to avoid Los Arboles after dark after Debbie was mauled, but these two had been riding along Campus Drive.

The location had changed, and the viciousness of the attacks had escalated drastically. The fifth victim's left hand was so mangled it had to be amputated. The sixth victim died. Rumor had it that parts of him were missing. _Eaten,_ people said.

By the time Sam got the news, he had filled up nearly half of the little notebook with rumor, bits pulled from internet sources of dubious virtue, and what little he could find in the university libraries. Other than Debbie's eyewitness account, the actual police reports were for once the best source he could find.

Sam had checked out Los Arboles just before Thanksgiving, but he wanted to get the scene fresh in his mind again. As the name might suggest, there were plenty of trees along the route, but Sam would hardly describe it or the stretch of Campus near FroSoCo as 'wooded.' The police reports might have described it as such, but Sam had rolled his eyes at that. To him, 'wooded' called up images of thicker, unbroken cover where no light got through and anything and everything could be hiding.

Still, if something wanted to lie in wait, there were plenty of places to choose from, even in December. The few remaining leaves shuddered and dipped in the scattered rain, but the only other sign of life was when a pair of cyclists in skin-tight fluorescents swooshed past him.

He had just reached the bike-only portion of Searsville Road when he was ambushed by the biggest dog he had ever seen in his life.

Seriously, the thing was so fat it was almost spherical.

Sam braked and turned the handlebars hard left, skidding to an awkward stop that was almost a fall. The dog bounded around him with asthmatic glee.

"Hey there!" Sam lowered the bike onto its side and crouched down so the poor dog didn't have to jump quite so high. The dog shoved its head under his hand, demanding to be petted.

He had no idea what kind of dog it was, other than well-fed, but the tan mask made him think shepherd mix. He rubbed one floppy, silky ear (maybe some hound in there?) between his fingers, and the dog's eyes went to half-mast in bliss. The dog had a bright purple collar and a bone-shaped name tag along all the other vaccination and license tags. A leash was still clipped to the collar's D-ring. Sam checked the name tag.

"Sadie, huh? Nice to meet you, Sadie." He should call the number on the tag, but it could wait a minute. His fingers went to the puppy-soft fur at the base of the ear. "Yeah, you like that, don't you, girl?"

She tilted her head up and swiped her tongue across his jaw. That would be a 'yes,' then. He laughed and got another lick.

He'd forgotten how much he missed this. Then, just as with almost every other good thing in his life, it was over much too soon.

A woman came running down the bike path, calling out Sadie's name desperately. She slowed to a walk when she saw Sam. "Oh, thank goodness! I'm glad you caught her before she got to the road--she's kind of stupid about cars, and everyone's in such a panic about dogs running loose right now." Her eyes went to Sam's bike lying on the side of the path. "Oh, no! She didn't knock you off your bike, did she?"

"No, no. We're fine." Sam got one last skritch in before Sadie's ears perked up and she bounded over to her owner with such joy you would have thought they'd been separated for months.

Bonesy used to be like that when Sam got back from a pizza run. Then one day, Sam went on a pizza run and never came back.

She must have misinterpreted his expression, because she started apologizing even more anxiously. "I am so, _so_ sorry about that. I didn't mean to let her run loose. She saw a squirrel, and she yanked so hard I dropped the leash. You wouldn't think it to look at her, but she's pretty fast."

Sam stood up. This caught Sadie's attention, and she ran back to him as if he were the most wonderful thing in the world.

 _My friend! My long-lost friend!_

"It's okay." This time, he got a grip on Sadie's collar in case she got distracted again. She leaned against him and he grinned. "I like dogs."

The woman finally smiled at him. She looked like she was someone's mother, old enough to maybe have a kid in Sam's class. "I never would have guessed," she said wryly. "Thank you for being so nice to her. I know she can be obnoxious, but she's really just a cream puff."

 _It certainly looks like she's eaten her share of them,_ Sam thought.

His hand slid down from the collar and he leaned over a little bit to thump Sadie gently on the shoulder. "Yeah. I know how that goes. It's the kind of obnoxious you miss, though."

He handed the leash back to her, and she accepted it with a gentle smile. "You have a dog back home?"

"Yeah," he said, because it was easier to lie than explain. "Bones. Golden Retriever."

She laughed and said that was a great name for a dog, and then Sam decided that he had to be in a hurry before he started spinning out stories that he might not be able to remember later.

He headed back down Campus after saying that oops, he'd forgotten his notes for class. On the way down, he did a general check of the land--where were the blind spots from this direction? Dan had been traveling south, but the other victim had been going towards the main quad.

That told him the creature probably had at least two different hiding places.

The police tape and the blood had been cleaned up, and all that was left was a small, makeshift memorial by the side of the road to mark the spot where Dan Iverson had had his guts ripped out. There was a teddy bear and a plastic cup full of flowers, and someone had made a small wooden cross. A picture of Dan--one of those generic yearbook photos that said nothing about the person--was propped against the cross, but it had already started to warp and wrinkle in the rain. By the end of the day, there would probably be more tributes. Sam had nothing to leave but a promise that he would try to find whatever had done this, and a silent apology for not doing more sooner.

That done, it was time to get to work. There weren't many places something could hide nearby with a good view of the bike lane, but there were some trees with tall grass or scrub growing beneath that would have given something good cover along with a clear path to the trail when Dan rode past.

Dan had been coming back from the main quad, so whatever it was would have been ten or so yards south of where Dan was found. Debbie's story and all the rumors he'd heard indicated that the dog had jumped from out of 'nowhere,' forcing them to swerve and getting them off-balance enough that it could knock them down easily.

 _The question is, was this a random attack, or did this thing single Dan and the others out for a reason? Let's assume there was a reason. Which means I'm going to have to do some digging into these guys' backgrounds, aren't I?_

While he trekked up to a likely hiding spot, Sam started working out how he might start doing those background checks. A breeze had cropped up, which was good. If someone came by and wondered what Sam was doing, he could be chasing down a bit of paper that had blown off. He was a little disgusted at how easy it was to come up with an excuse for snooping around.

It didn't take him long to find where the thing had been waiting. It was clear at once that this wasn't just a feral dog, and Sam had to stop and close his eyes for a minute.

He hadn't realized just how much he was hoping it had been and that he'd be able to call Bobby back with a 'never mind.' And he hated himself for thinking _this isn't fair, I've got exams coming up_ , but the thought was there, and it burned.

Well, it wasn't fair that Debbie would need multiple surgeries to fix her face and arm, or that Dan Iverson would never have to worry about exams again.

Sam had a job to do, no matter how much he didn't want to do it. He tried not to feel guilty about hoping Bobby found someone soon, and made a quick sketch of the monster's hiding place. He gathered what evidence he could, and then, just before leaving, put his hand down on top of the one clear paw print that that stood out in the mess of animal and human tracks.

The print was nearly as big as his hand.

* * *

At two twenty-five, Sam ran up the steps of Encina Hall. He told himself several times that Bobby was expecting a call at four-thirty, not earlier, and besides, this was the last session for this class before exams.

At two forty-five, he feigned a stomachache without too much difficulty and rushed back to his room. Luis shouldn't be back until sometime after six, so he had some guarantee of privacy.

Sam flopped down on the futon-slash-couch and took a few deep breaths. He could do this. What left him agitated and sour-stomached was the realization that on some level, he _wanted_ to do this. He pulled his notebook and his cell phone out of his pocket. Then he got the baggies of evidence out of his backpack and arranged them next to him on the futon. In one of them, the dark of the contents nearly disappeared against the navy blue.

Bobby answered just as Sam thought he was going to get the answering machine.

"Wasn't expecting you to call so early, Sam."

"Yeah." Sam grinned nervously and ducked his head even though there was no one there to see. "I kinda skipped class."

"You?" Bobby laughed, but at least he didn't bring up what Sam thought would be an inevitable comparison to Dean.

"Hey, I was having trouble concentrating on judicial politics and constitutional law."

There was a snort on the other end of the line. "Why the hell would you _want_ to?" There was an awkward pause that Sam wasn't sure he should try to fill. "Sorry. I know it's important to you, Sam. Anyways, I'm guessing you found something?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure what to make of it." Sam rearranged the baggies. "I'm not sure if this thing looks human some of the time, or if there's someone who's managed to get control of a ... something. There's definitely a person or something intelligent involved. I do know it's not a werewolf, though."

Sam heard the sound of a mug clunking down at a table, and that was enough for him to imagine himself in Bobby's kitchen, sitting at a book-strewn table and talking companionably. "Fair enough. How so?"

"No full moon on any of the attacks. In fact, there's no clear pattern other than the fact that all the victims are from FroSoCo, um, that's Freshman-Sophomore College. The dorms where I live." There was a moment where he imagined talking to Bobby about his everyday life here, and all the stupid, wonderful, normal things that were a part of it, but this was not the time. "The important thing here is that we're a little bit off the beaten path, and there's lots of back and forth between here and main campus. That's when people are being ambushed. What's weird is that there's some graduate housing right nearby, and I haven't heard of any grad students being attacked."

"So, you're thinking it's singling people out."

"Yeah, though that's more of a hunch than a solid theory right now." Sam related what he had figured out about the thing choosing a hiding spot--more like a hunting blind--and how it would probably have to wait for a while for someone to come by. It also seemed like it didn't use the same blind twice, but he couldn't be sure. "Other than the dorm thing, I don't know about any other connection between the victims yet, but I'm digging."

"Wait. You found where it was lying in wait? As in solid evidence? Has anyone other than the victims seen this thing?"

Sam flipped through his notebook. "Yeah. Twice." Chris Wolfe--victim number five--probably would have died if someone hadn't driven by, sending the dog racing off into the bushes. "Both reported a huge black dog that ran off as soon as it knew it had been spotted. One said it had glowing red eyes, but most people are dismissing that as reflection. Beyond that, there was about as much detail as you'd expect about a black dog at night."

He heard a swallow, then the mug hitting the table again. "Well, that's something at least."

"How so?"

There was a long pause. "Something in that at least we're not dealing with some dumbass who conjured up a vicious _invisible_ dog. Hellhounds would be a whole 'nother mess of problems and if that's what we were dealing with I'd be telling you to transfer your ass to Harvard as soon as you could."

"Uh, okay." There were a lot of blanks there that Bobby was assuming he could fill in. Sam almost asked Bobby to back up and explain, but he was getting out of this life, not digging deeper in. Hellhounds and their ilk were a non-issue. He could forget about them. "Anyhow, we're dealing with what seems to be a normal looking black dog. Except for the glowing eyes, and the, uh, hugeness. Debbie--she's a friend of mine, she got torn up pretty bad, and..." He stopped for a moment. When he started again, his voice felt steadier. He had no idea how it sounded. "She said the dog's eyes really glowed, as in they cast light. And that there was something kind of human about them. There was one other thing, but she's already got herself convinced it was her mind playing tricks on her. She said the dog was laughing at her."

He heard muffled cursing and the sound of books and papers being moved around roughly. "Okay. That tells me a lot, right there. Tell me about what you found at the site."

"Well," he said, picking up the first baggie. "I found a wadded up bag and some Funyun bits. It was shoved deep down into the weeds, and I think it was our guy who did it."

"Funyuns? And why'd you decide this was a clue and not litter?"

He picked up the second and third baggies. "Well, I also found some plant material. Most of it was burned, and there were soot smears and some char on the bag, like he'd handled it after burning the plants. "

"Good eye, son. What kind of plants? Could you tell?"

Sam picked up baggie number two. "Well, there's the usual suspects. Sage, cedar, you know. Most of that's ash, but I recognized the smell. And the, let's see... there were some seed pods in there. I haven't had a chance to look any of this up yet, but they're pretty distinctive--about the size of a walnut, a little bit spiny, they've got four sections when you break them open, and there's lots of little black seeds."

More paper movement. More cursing. "Any flowers in the mix?" It sounded like Bobby already knew the answer to that question.

"Yeah. I was just getting to that. I found some white flowers mixed in there as well." The majority of the flowers were dried into papery lengths that were well-charred, but there were a couple that had been too fresh to burn. They had wilted, but it was easy to see that they were long, thin trumpets. "They look kind of like petunias."

Bobby cursed. "Jimson weed. Jesus, you telling me you don't know the difference between that and a goddamn petunia? Jimson's used to boost a bunch of different shape-shifting spells, and whoever this is knows enough to know you need both the flowers and the seeds. Both ends of the cycle. Great. Let me guess. You also found a mix of human and animal prints, all on top of each other."

"Yeah." Sam's voice sounded very small, even to him. Even after seeing the evidence, it was hard for him to get his head around the idea that this a person, not a thing, who was doing this. Doing this to himself. Making himself--or herself--into something other than human.

He wanted to ask why someone would do this, but didn't want to hear Bobby to say 'I don't know,' or something even worse. "There were. That and a couple of other things. There were markings--deliberate markings--on the ground. It was all trampled over, but some bits were clear. Can I fax you a copy of what I sketched?"

"Yeah. Do that. What else? You said you found a couple of things."

Sam picked up the last baggie, the one that was almost invisible against the futon. "The spot where the dog jumped out of the thicket was pretty obvious. It crashed through a bramble, and I found something--"

There was a scraping at the doorknob, and faint metallic clicks that Sam recognized instantly. Of course, he would normally be the one responsible for making those sounds.

"Uh, I'm going to have to call you back in a bit, okay? Someone's trying to break into my room."

"Have fun. Go easy on 'em."

What was _that_ supposed to mean? Even though Bobby wasn't there to see, Sam gave him a _look_ as he hung up the phone. He put the baggies in his desk drawer and piled junk on top of them. There was no need to rush--whoever was picking the locks on the door sucked at it.

He walked over and opened the door so quickly the would-be intruder stumbled into the room, nearly doing a face-plant.

"Oh. Hi, Brady," Sam said, all innocence. "I didn't hear you knock."

Brady had grabbed Sam's arm to keep himself steady on his feet. Judging from the smell, the near fall wasn't the only reason Brady was having trouble getting his footing.

"Whoa, Sam. Didn't think you'd be here, what with class and all."

Sam helped Brady over to the futon. "Right. So you thought you'd let yourself in. Um, don't you have your own room?"

Brady gave him a shrug and a sour look. "Matt told me to fuck off and leave him alone until I'd 'sobered up,'" he said, giving the air quotes. "And don't you start in on me. It was only three beers, and it's after five on the east coast."

"I'll make you some coffee." Sam doubted the three beers story. For one thing, it smelled more like three bourbons.

"Aw, that's nice. How come you're always such a nice guy, Sam?" Brady flopped down on the futon, and Sam winced when the frame creaked. "And why aren't you in class, anyway?"

Sam shrugged, feeling that was the only answer Brady deserved. "If I were nice, I'd go pick you up some real coffee. All we've got in the room right now is instant."

Brady groaned in a way that made Sam fear for the futon cover. But Sam was indeed nice, and added enough milk and sugar to the instant to cover the vileness.

At first, Sam thought Brady was asleep, with the way he had an arm flung over his eyes, but the arm shifted up just a little when Sam came by.

"Can you not make this a habit, man?" Sam held out the coffee. Brady sat up excruciatingly slowly and took it. He sniffed it suspiciously before saying 'thanks.' "I've had enough looking after people who are sleeping off a drunk to last me a lifetime."

That got a sharp grin and a knowing look that didn't look at all right on Brady's face. "Wow. Sordid Winchester family details. You don't let those slip very often."

"Forget I said anything."

"Huh? Oh, hey, hey... I'm sorry about that. That came out wrong," Brady said, and he sounded very much sober and very much like the Brady Sam remembered from before that breakdown or crisis or whatever the hell it was that happened over Thanksgiving break.

"Yeah, it did."

Brady didn't take umbrage at that. He just sat there, head bowed, letting it sink in. "Sorry. I mean that. I know I haven't been myself lately..." he laughed, even though it wasn't funny at all. "Thanks for putting up with me. I mean it."

"Anytime, pal. And I mean it, too." Sam settled in at his desk and opened up his laptop. He had two papers to finish in the next week on top of all the studying he had to do. He really hoped Brady snapped out of this social and academic death spiral of his soon, or at least opened up about what had set him off.

He stared at his psych paper for a good long time, not really reading anything that was on the screen. Every time he tried to think of how to flesh out the next part of his outline, he started thinking about how he had almost roomed with Brady this year, and how he was starting to be glad he hadn't.

Sam really hated when a sense of relief came with a side-order of guilt. Brady had been fine about it when Sam said he didn't want to ditch Luis, and how maybe junior year, him and Luis and Matt and Brady could all go in together on an apartment.

It still seemed so strange, so new, having the same living arrangements for two years running, when he could remember years where two months in the same place seemed like a forever-long time. It seemed even stranger, making plans for where he would be living a year from now.

"Doing okay over there?" Sam asked. When he didn't get an answer, he looked over his shoulder. Brady was sound asleep, arm back over his eyes, and mouth open. Sam shook his head and turned back to staring at his computer screen.

One thing he'd never thought about was how you could stay in one place for as long as you liked, but that didn't mean that the people there wouldn't up and change on you without warning.

Sam closed Word, giving up on the psych paper for now. Of course, if he'd roomed with Brady, then maybe he'd have gotten wind of whatever had made Brady go nuts and he could have done something. As it was, the change was so abrupt as to be mind-boggling. Hell, last night Brady was going off about how he was done--D-O-N-E--with pre-med. No more of that shit, he'd said. He was giving up on what others wanted, and doing what _he_ wanted for a goddamn change.

Sam might have believed him, but just before Thanksgiving break he had listened to Brady talk for hours about what he planned to do with his medical degree, and why, and the light in his eyes wasn't the sort of thing you could fake.

Sam had reminded Brady of this when he went off on his rant about 'looking out for number one,' and for a moment it seemed to get through. Just a little. At least Brady admitted that just because his parents wanted something for him, that didn't mean he couldn't want it for himself. But that was as far as it went.

Maybe this was just stress. Maybe another week or two of party-hearty would knock whatever it was out of Brady's system. He'd barely had time to knock his grades into the gutter, so unless he blew off exams, it wasn't too late for him to pull them back out. If worse came to worst, it was only one quarter.

Since he was already wallowing in his own problems rather than focusing on Ab Psych, Sam pulled out the memo book. He might as well make some use of his time. He looked through his notes and started pulling out coherent themes.

 _Attacks--increasing intensity and frequency. ~~What~~ **Who** ever's doing this becoming careless. Sloppy. Evidence left behind. Going after people where more likely to be seen._

He felt a familiar rush as things began to fall into place, and he started to assemble a picture of something that had started relatively innocently (he made a note to find out if anyone reported being harassed by a dog before Peter Rakitzis was bitten) but was getting worse and getting worse faster.

He'd missed this.

 _Peter Rakitzis. Meagan Shaffer. Jay Whitehead. Debbie Nguyen. Chris Wolfe. Dan Iverson_. He re-read the list of names, the few facts he knew about each person slotting into place automatically. No pattern jumped out immediately other than them being from the same dorm and being alone when they--no, wait. There was something else.

Four of them been on the way to or from class, but Meagan and Chris had been on the way to a regular, scheduled event--theater rehearsal for Meagan, and swim practice for Chris. That meant each of the six would have been heading to or from main quad close enough to a specific time that someone could set an effective ambush.

Now, to find a common thread. He'd have to start talking to people. _Okay, got to find a good excuse for asking around..._

Sam jotted down the first few excuses that came to mind before he asked himself what the hell he thought he was supposed to be doing. This wasn't supposed to be fun.

He leaned back in his chair, raking his fingers deep through his hair. "Goddamnit it..."

"Sam? Y'okay?" Brady mumbled.

"Yeah. Fine. Go back to sleep." He'd gone so deep that he'd forgotten that Brady was there. Jesus, what would he say if Brady had come over here and gotten a good look at what he was doing? Or if he lost track of time and Luis came back?

No way in hell was he going to go back to being a freak, a loner, someone who had to pack up and move every few months, weeks, days. No more motel bathroom surgeries. No more sleeping in the back of a car or out in the woods. No more explaining away cuts and bruises. No more petty theft, no more fraud, no more rooking money out of people who were one wrong word from trying to knife him.

No more having to pretend.

He was done. D-O-N-E, as Brady might say.

 _Maybe I could just do this sort of thing, though. There's no harm in helping out a little, doing some research on the side for people who need help..._

No. This was a one-time deal, no matter what Bobby had said. After this, it was back to a normal life.

But he still had a sudden, vivid image of Dean, grinning at him and holding a knife, handle out, pushing it towards him and daring him to take it. _C'mon, Sammy. It'll be fun. Just like old times, huh?_

Sam tossed the memo book into the junk drawer. He didn't mean to slam the drawer shut, but he did so hard enough that he had to scramble to keep the desk lamp from toppling over.

"Jeez, Sam. What'd that desk do to you, anyway?"

Sam swiveled his chair to face Brady. He looked very awake now. "I'm blaming it for writer's block. How you doing on your paper for Ab Psych, by the way?"

"I'll have something to turn in," Brady said, not looking at Sam. "Anyhow, it sounded like you _broke_ something just now. You're scary, man."

"No, I'm not." Sam stood up and stretched, hands almost grazing the ceiling. He clenched and unclenched his right hand, trying to dispel the sensation of the weight and heft of a knife's hilt.

"You seen you? I mean seriously. All I'm saying is, no way do I ever want you mad at me." He sounded deadly serious, but then he cracked up at the look Sam gave him.

"Can it, Brady. I'm hungry. C'mon."

He held the door open, waiting for Brady to get his ass off the futon and making it clear that leaving Brady alone in the room was not an option. Someone who thought picking locks was a good idea (well, there were times when it _was_ ) probably wouldn't think twice about digging through someone's desk in search of aspirin or whatever.

Sam made a mental note to find a way to discreetly dispose of his hunting knife over winter break. He'd made the same note a few times, but this time he meant it.

Brady got up without any fuss, but stopped short when he turned to go down the hall. "What the hell?"

Sam closed the door behind him. "What do you mean, what the hell?"

Brady ignored him. Someone was in the hallway, slumped against Debbie's door. "Rod? What the fuck are you doing?"

"Hey, Rod." Sam tried to counter Brady's aggression with something more friendly, but Rod still looked up at them, wide-eyed and fearful.

"Ah... Hi." Rod was a tall guy, nearly as tall as Sam, but he had a way of making himself look pathetically small. "I just... Debbie, you know?"

Rod's crush on Debbie had been painfully obvious to everyone. Sam had heard that he'd asked her out, but what happened after that he didn't know.

"Yeah, when we talked last week, you were telling me all about how she shot you down, and now she's dog chow," Brady said cheerfully. "Sorry about that, man."

Rod blinked a few times, as if finally registering who was standing there talking to him. "Brady?" Rod's eyes went hard, and he suddenly looked his full height as he closed the ground between himself and Brady in two strides. "Listen, you fucking son of a bitch, this is all your--"

"Hey. Steady." Sam got himself between Rod and Brady. A hand on Rod's chest stopped him cold. Rod pushed back, but it was no contest at all. "I know you liked her, and I know Brady's being an asshole--"

"Hey!"

"You are. So shut it." He turned back to Rod. "I'm really sorry about what happened to Debbie. Maybe you should go visit her or something, yeah? I went to see her the other day, and one thing she said was that she felt like people weren't coming by, like maybe they were scared to look at her."

Rod looked away. He said nothing, but his jaw was working convulsively and he was making himself small again. Sam had a feeling he wouldn't be visiting Debbie any time soon.

"Yeah. Maybe," he said.

"Well, let's just hope the police or whoever find what tore her up," Brady said. He pointed at Rod, making a gun of his hand. "Maybe the next we hear of our mysterious and spooooky black dog, it'll be because someone finally put a bullet in its head."

Rod looked very much like he wanted to say something to Brady, but he cut a quick, scared glance up at Sam and said nothing.

"It's kind of freaky, isn't it?" Brady said, ignoring Sam's glare. "Big monster black dog. Sounds like something kind of up your alley."

Sam stared at him. He'd been so careful. How had Brady...

"You shut the hell up about that," Rod hissed. "I never should have list--uh, Winchester, can you uh, let me go?"

"Sorry." Without knowing, Sam had twisted up a big handful of Rod's shirt, all but lifting him onto tiptoes. "Brady, you go on ahead. I'll catch up, okay?"

Brady breezed past them. "Sure thing. See ya, Rod." He walked off down the hallway, making only one parting shot before he hit the stairwell.

"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"

Rod had gone blotchy, angry red and sickly pale all at once. "Why the hell are you friends with that asshole anyway?"

Sam shrugged. These days, he wasn't too sure about that himself. "He's normally not like this. This is new. Something's going on, and I sure as hell hope he snaps out of it."

Rod still looked hatefully in the direction of the stairwell. "He's trouble. Do you have any idea what he--" He shook his head and slumped against the wall. "Never mind. Just... never mind. It's nothing. Forget I said anything."

"It's okay. I'll keep an eye on him," Sam said, although he wasn't sure if he could keep that promise. "You going to be okay?"

He got another look, one that was just this side of screaming panic. "Yeah," Rod said in a very small voice. "Look, can I, um, go? I just want... yeah."

"Sure. Take care of yourself, Rod. And go visit Debbie, will ya?" Sam continued on his way, deliberately not looking back when he heard a stuttering sob from behind him.

Poor Rod. Sam didn't really like the guy all that much--he was so anxious to be liked that it made you feel obligated to try to be his friend, and that was never fun. Plus, a few things he'd overheard made Sam suspect that Rod would think his former life as a hunter was cool, like it was something to fucking _aspire_ to. He also had a nasty feeling that if Rod ever got wind that things like ghosts and werewolves and rawheads were real he'd go after them and try to make friends. Like that could ever end well.

So Sam was as nice to him as he was to anyone else (there wasn't any reason not to be) and kept him at arm's length.

Sam walked across the courtyard to the dining hall and made a mental note to look into Rod's connections to the victims. There were dozens of students Sam had met who seemed eager to wallow in the occult, but most of them were harmless enough.

Still, he was sometimes tempted to hint that they would be much safer finding another thing to obsess about. Collecting stamps, maybe. Or raising racing pigeons.

But Rod had a reputation for being interested in the occult, and he had a connection to Debbie. He also worked as a stage tech for a couple of the campus theater groups, so that meant he might know Meagan Shaffer.

"Way to be paranoid, Winchester," he muttered. "Try to be sane about this, okay?" Dad probably would have had him tossing Rod's room by now.

No, Rod was genuinely broken up over what happened to Debbie. No way he would have done that to her himself. Still, he had better look into things. Rod could be the connection without being the cause.

When he got to the dining hall, Sam saw Brady sitting with a group of their friends, laughing and--from the way he was gesturing extravagantly--telling some outrageous story. Therefore, Sam didn't feel any guilt about ditching and taking a meal back to his room, even though Brady looked half-buzzed. Before he left, he caught Brady's eye, pointed at his meal, then pointed back in the direction of his room. Brady smiled and waved, then went back to his conversation as if Sam didn't matter at all.

That felt better than Sam thought it would.

On his way out, he saw one of the official notices warning people to be careful traveling to main quad. It reminded people of the shuttle schedule. It also summarized the state laws regarding pepper spray, just in case.

Another notice gave a number to call if anyone saw a dog loose in the area. Sam thought about Sadie bolting from her owner, and he wondered if anyone could possibly be stupid enough to call her in for being a menace.

He laughed softly at the memory of the sweet, dimwitted dog. Maybe when he moved into an apartment next year, he'd find one that would allow dogs.

Yeah, that would be nice, having a dog again...

The last time he ever saw Bones, he had probably said something like _wait here, boy, I'll be right back and we'll have some pizza!_ And Bones would have sat at full attention, feet planted square in front of him and putting all his might into being A Good Dog. He would have been sitting just like that when Sam returned, because he was A Very Good Dog, but Sam never made it back. When he came out of the pizza place, the Impala had pulled almost all the way up on the sidewalk, and Dean was out of the car and on top of him before Sam had a chance to run.

Sam had said nothing about Bones, figuring that Dean didn't deserve to know about the best dog in the whole world. It wasn't until days later that he thought that maybe Dean would have gone back for Bones and maybe even stood up to Dad. But they were in Maine by then, and it was too late.

Sometimes, he wondered what had happened to Bones, and how long he had waited for Sam before giving up. He wondered if there was any way he could find out, but he never did more than wonder. If he could find out, he wasn't sure he'd like the answer. As much as not knowing sucked, there were things that sucked more.

It was easier to believe that a dog as good as Bones had had a family that missed him, and that was out of their minds with joy when he showed up after being missing for two weeks.

When he got back to his room, Sam plunked his dinner on the coffee table, and almost knocked over Brady's coffee cup. It was still half-full of curdled coffee, so he took it to the bathroom to dump and wash out. For some reason, he thought that maybe he should call Dean. Just to make sure he was okay. Or something.

But in the end, he decided he wasn't sure he'd like what he heard if he did call.

So he didn't.

* * *

"How the hell did you get a free ride to Stanford, but you still get time zones messed up? You know what time it is here?"

Sam gingerly returned the phone to his ear. "Uh, late?"

"Two hours later than it is out there, college-boy."

Sam looked at the clock in the corner of his computer and winced. "Sorry about that, Bobby. I did pull some more stuff together about our... whatever it is. Did you get my fax?"

"Hold on, lemme check. You just sent it over?"

"Yeah. About ten minutes ago." Finding a scanner that would send a fax had taken longer than he had thought it would.

Sam heard footsteps and then a rustle of paper. "Got it. No surprises here. This just confirms what I thought. Your 'whatever it is' is a nagual."

"A what? I thought that we were dealing with a human who was changing shape."

"We are, but there's a number of ways that can happen. A nagual's a kind of magician who can change himself into an animal. Only one kind of animal, though. Turkey's supposed to be common, and so's donkey."

"We should only be so lucky," Sam said.

Dean would have made a joke about a donkey show right about now. Sam could hear it word-for-word, even though Dean wasn't there. He stifled a laugh.

"Unfortunately, dogs are also on the short list. You've seen for yourself what the bad news about all this is. The good news is that you should be able subdue it just like you would any other dog if you run into it. Any dog that weighs a hundred and seventy five pounds or so and can think like a human, that is."

Sam thought about Brady's remark about putting a bullet through the thing's head and swallowed hard against the surge of nausea.

"Great. So what am I supposed to do when I subdue it?"

"Sam, I'm still trying to round up help. I'm not expecting you to take this all on yourself, son."

There was a lot that Bobby was not saying. "But what if I don't have a choice, Bobby? This guy can and will kill. Not to get all Psych 101 on you, but there's an escalating pattern of behavior here. The first attacks were in a relatively secluded place, and took place over the space of a month. The last two happened on the same _day_ , and they were along a road with heavy traffic. He's leaving traces behind and not bothering to clean up. So, what do I do? I have to do something before someone else gets hurt."

"You don't have to confront it directly. The jimson and the circle help--make the transformation faster, make it less painful--but the one thing a nagual absolutely needs to transform is a belt or some other item made out of the skin of the animal it transforms into. You can cut it off 'em when they're transformed, but you can also go find where they keep it stashed, then steal it and burn it."

Sam got up and went over to his desk. "Hold on. I may have found something like that at the site. I was about to tell you about that when I was interrupted." He pushed aside the junk in the drawer until he found the baggies.

"How'd that work out, anyway? What did you do to the burglar?"

"Let him sleep off a drunk. It was just a friend of mine who's going through a rough time and kinda not thinking straight."

"I'll say. How many college kids who aren't you would try to pull a stunt like that?"

"Very funny, Bobby." Sam pulled out the one baggie he hadn't told Bobby about. There was a small triangular scrap of fur inside, with a leathery backing. One side of the triangle was jagged, as if it had been torn. The other two sides were clean cut, as if they'd been trimmed with a knife. "Anyhow, I think I found a piece of that belt you mentioned. It looks like it got caught on the bushes where he was hiding. I don't suppose burning a scrap would have the same effect as burning the whole thing?"

"Doubt it."

Sam looked at the scrap again. It wasn't cured, like leather. It had a gamy odor, and the skin was caked with dried blood.

"So where would he get a dog skin in the first place?" As soon as he asked, he wished he hadn't.

"Where do you think?"

On his way back and forth from the main quad over the past year and a half, Sam had seen any number of LOST DOG or LOST CAT flyers. Some of them were taken down after a day or two. Others stayed up for weeks, or even months, fading and falling to bits from the rain and sun. Some were probably left up because when the missing came back, there were other things to think of besides posters.

Others had no doubt been left up just in case, as people continued to hope.

He thought of friendly Sadie, who'd run to him as if he was her long-lost best friend, or Bones, who had followed him back to his hideout, perhaps looking for a meal, or perhaps needing company just as much as Sam had.

He took a few deep breaths until the pounding in his head subsided.

"Okay. One way or another, we need to stop this guy, and soon. Tell me what to do."

Bobby sighed. "Taking the belt is only the first step. The real trick is to keep whoever it is from doing it again. The problem with calling up this kind of power is that you can't exactly flip the off switch and call it done. What you're saying about things escalating doesn't surprise me all that much. Playing with this kind of mojo can fry your brain in all kinds of interesting ways. There's a reason why there's places where if they suspect you're a nagual, you can pretty much expect the locals to show up and run you out of town. That is, if they don't beat you to death first. What does surprise me is how fast this is happening."

"How so?"

"Now, I've never dealt with one of these things myself, but every source I've found--and by the way, Castaneda is full of shit, but you knew that--says that the kind of buildup you're talking about takes months, even years. From what you're telling me, this is happening over a few _days_. It's like you're dealing with someone whose first step was sneaking a puff of his daddy's cigar and whose next step was smoking PCP."

"Yowch." He winced. "That can't be good. What do you think happened?"

"Other than someone spiking his jimson, not a clue. And that was a joke, by the way. But I'm not joking when I say we've got to stop this guy and stop him for good."

It took Sam a minute to figure out what Bobby meant by 'for good.'

"Wait. You're not saying I'm supposed to _kill_ whoever this is, are you? Bobby, this... this is a human being we're talking about. Maybe even someone I know--someone I live with. There's got to be a way to make them see reason, right? Get them back to normal? By now, they've got to know how fucked they are."

"Sam, you've hunted werewolves before. And what do you think ghosts used to be?"

"But that's--" Sam couldn't put it into words. Some ghosts thought they were still alive, still human, but they were only a leftover, a remnant. And werewolves...

He hadn't actually been on that one hunt, but he remembered Dad hauling Dean back to the motel room, yelling at Sam to get some hot water running and get out the bandages, tear up the sheets if he had to. He also remembered Dad being more snarly and short-tempered than usual a month later, and it was only when Dean made some stupid joke a few days after the full moon that he realized that Dad was waiting to see if it was the werewolf's teeth or claws that had torn Dean's leg open.

Yeah, Sam knew the theory behind what werewolves were when there wasn't a full moon, but the whole _monster that nearly killed my brother_ thing kind of trumped that one.

What was the line, and when did you cross it? When you killed a dog? When you tore another human being to shreds? When you took it upon yourself to kill someone who decided he wasn't playing by civilized rules anymore?

"You said it yourself, Sam. They've already killed one person, and it sounds like it's only pure dumb luck it wasn't two. Now that someone's actually died, our friend is probably even more desperate not to get caught, and you got to be ready to deal with that. I'm not saying it's easy, or even right, but what happens if you don't have a choice?"

"There's always a choice. There has to be! What if this person isn't in his right mind? What if he _wants_ to stop?"

There was a silence that Sam didn't want to try to parse. "Look, like I told you, I'll get someone out there as soon as I can. Find out who's doing this, and see if you can slow them down by getting hold of that goddamn belt. Then there's also the question of what made him jump the tracks around Thanksgiving. I know you want out of this life, Sam. I know you want normal. I get that, and I'll do what I can."

"Bobby..."

"Just give me one more day, Sam. I'll call in every favor I can, so hang tight, okay?"

For one wild moment, Sam wondered if Bobby would send Dad or Dean. He could picture the car pulling up, could see Dean getting out of the driver's seat...

The only thing he couldn't picture was what he would do if that did happen.

Sam didn't even register that Bobby had said goodbye and hung up until the phone started blatting a busy signal.

* * *

It took Sam a long time to fall asleep. It wasn't a good sleep. His dreams were too vivid, too much like waking life for sleep to be restful.

He dreamed he was riding his bike up Campus, looking for someone. The dream strobed by in fits and starts, so disjointed it nearly jolted him awake more than once.

Between one moment and the next, he was off the road, standing in the field to the north of the tennis courts. He had no idea where his bike had gone.

"Sam!"

It was only one panicked cry, but Sam recognized Brady's voice.

Sam tried to call out, but this had turned into one of those dreams where you couldn't make a sound, couldn't move. He could strain his muscles, but his feet might as well have been stuck in tar. All he could do was stand there and let things happen to and around him.

He couldn't move, but the darkness could. It was just a sense of motion, at first, then shadows becoming solid until he made out the shape of a large black dog lazily trotting across the field. It was long-legged and tuck-waisted, and each stride ate up yards of ground with deceptive speed. It lifted a head that seemed to be all jaw, looking in this direction and that.

 _Come out, come out, wherever you are..._

"Sam!"

The dog stopped, then looked straight at Sam. Its eyes glowed red, not like coal, but like light through stained glass. It cocked its head, and the way its tongue lolled out conjured up an echo of laughter.

 _What are you going to do about it, huh?_

Sam tried to tell it just to stop before it was too late, but he couldn't speak. He couldn't move.

"Sam! Sam! _Sam!_ "

Sam snapped awake, hissing at the spike of pain in his forehead. Goddamn migraines...

At first, he thought he still heard Brady yelling for him, but that wasn't it.

Luis mumbled something about answering the damned phone already, but it was muffled by the pillow he'd pulled over his head.

Sam scrabbled around on the floor next to his bed until he found his phone. It had stopped ringing. But just as he was about to put it down, it started ringing again. Caller ID said it was Brady.

Okay. In his experience (primarily thanks to Dean) drunk dials usually ended up in long, rambling messages. Not immediate redials.

He said a quick apology to Luis and took the phone into the other room. He probably should have ignored it, but the sound of Brady yelling for help was still too real.

"Brady. What is it? What's wrong?"

"Sam? Uh, help?" His voice was tight, high, hysterical, and very, very sober. "I'm kind of up a tree, here. Literally."

In the background, Sam heard a vicious growl rise and fall then rise again.

* * *

It only took him two minutes to be on his bike and on his way. It called back memories of times when he'd gotten this sort of call from Dad or Dean.

Weirdly enough, they weren't bad memories.

Sam rode as hard as he could, so fast the headlight barely flickered. He had a stray thought that he maybe should have called the proper authorities, but he dismissed the idea at once. The proper authorities couldn't handle this sort of thing. Good thing Brady had been so wasted he thought calling Sam was a rational choice.

He heard a strangled barking--a barking that sounded like it was trying to be speech.

The dog wasn't even bothering to hide. It was in full view of the road, jumping at the lowest branches of a sycamore tree and falling back into the juniper. It got up each time and circled the tree, looking for a way up. Sam skidded to a halt close by but not too close, letting his bike fall into the juniper. He had his flashlight on and at the ready.

"Brady! It's me! You up there?"

"Sam! Look out! I think that thing has rabies! _Awww,_ does da widdle puppy have wabies? Yes, you _do_ my widdle snooky-wookums!"

The dog barked something that sounded amazingly like _fuck you_ as it jumped. This time, it got its paws around a branch, and it started scrabbling up.

"Holy _shit!_ It shouldn't be able to do that!"

"Brady! Climb higher!"

Damn it! Every other time, the dog had taken off when someone had seen it. Either things were getting worse, or the dog _really_ had it in for Brady.

Sam edged around, trying to get to a better angle, wondering if he could distract the dog and make it fall. The flashlight showed him dark fur, and long legs, and for a moment he thought it looked just like the dog in his dreams.

"I'm as high as I can go! The branches are too thin up here! I'll fall!"

Sam hefted the flashlight. There was no way he was going to bring his hunting knife out here, not along a busy road, and not where Brady could see. But one nice thing about a Maglite was that you could use it to inflict some significant damage.

There was another growl, then a shriek of pain.

"My leg! Sam, it bit my goddamn leg! Get me out of here!"

"Just hold on, Dean! I got this!"

Sam didn't remember thinking, just moving fluidly, seeing what he was going to do before he was going to do it.

He jumped up and grabbed the dog by the hock. He didn't pull so much as force the dog to take on his entire bodyweight. It yelped and started to lose its purchase. Sam let go, and the suddenness of it threw the dog even more off balance.

"Get out of here!" he yelled. He swung the Maglite hard, hitting the dog square on the hip. There was a solid _thwack_ and a shrill _yike!_ and he swung again.

The dog screamed, and tumbled from the tree. Sam lunged for it as it scrabbled away as fast as it could, looking back over its shoulder.

The eyes glowed bright ruby red, but rather than hatred, they showed nothing but hurt and betrayed surprise. He'd gotten that look from Bones one time when Sam accidentally stepped on his leg.

 _Why did you do that to me? Why? What did I do?_

The shock of it stopped him long enough for the dog to regain its feet and crash clear of the brush. It ran off awkwardly into the night, keeping the weight off its right hind leg.

* * *

Brady called Sam the next morning. He was lucky. A series of shots, some antibiotics, and three stitches in his leg, and he would be fine. The experience also seemed to have sobered him up quite a bit.

Maybe there would be some good that came out of this whole mess, Sam thought. For the past week, Brady had been... well, Sam wasn't sure what to think about it. But if the nagual had started going nuts shortly after Brady did, maybe there could be some sort of connection.

Sam pulled out his trusty memo book and made a note to look for a connection. Maybe this was what Bobby meant when he said there was no such thing as an ex-hunter.

It was a depressing thought.

No, he'd break himself of this habit soon enough, just as he'd broken himself of his mistrust of police, or his habit of always keeping half his stuff in a bag so he could pack up and go at any minute.

Sam took a deep breath, and thought of what he _should_ be thinking of, namely Brady.

Maybe this was the scare Brady needed to yank him back on the straight and narrow. He hadn't done himself any serious harm--yet--but the way he'd been going, that was only a matter of sooner rather than later. But right now, it wasn't _too_ late.

And maybe Bobby was wrong, and it wasn't too late for the nagual. The way that thing had looked at him. The hurt. The confusion.

Sam rubbed at his eyes and tried to shiver the image away. Why should he feel so guilty about lashing out at a monster?

Maybe because it _wasn't_ a monster. This thing was one of his classmates. It had to be.

College was a time for people to try new and stupid things, and there wasn't much that was more stupid than digging deep into the darker aspects of the occult.

Maybe a close encounter with a vicious Maglite had knocked some sobriety into this thing... this person. But that wouldn't be enough. Sam would need to follow through. He was going to do everything he could to get Brady to stay the hell on the wagon, and he was going to make sure whoever this was had a chance to _get_ on.

Now he just had to find out who it was. The only people he knew it wasn't were the victims--which now included Brady. Sam felt a bit guilty at the sense of relief that came with the thought.

So, how the hell was he supposed to find a shape changer in a group of nearly two hundred freshmen and sophomores?

* * *

In the end, it was laughably simple. It played out just like in the old stories--the real ones.

A farmer throws a rock at a rabbit, a badger, a fox. The animal runs off.

The next day, he sees the old woman who lives up the lane, the one everyone says is a witch.

She's limping.

Last night, Sam struck a big black dog in the hip.

At lunchtime, when Sam went to Ricker to grab some lunch, Rod was there. He moved through the food service line slowly, visibly favoring his right leg.

God damn it. Sam clenched his fists and forced himself to breathe deep. He'd had every reason to suspect Rod, but he'd been so quick to find reasons to dismiss those suspicions.

Long strides carried him across the servery floor. Sam was vaguely aware of getting some looks, and there was a whisper of _uh oh, what's he going to do?_ but he didn't stop until Rod realized he was there and looked at him. The eyes were washed-out blue rather than glowing red, but the look in them was the same.

"Uh... hi, Winchester. I, uh..."

"Hi, Rod."

It came out wrong. Rod turned blotchy, and the girl behind him in line took a bit step back.

"I thought I told you to go visit Debbie. You haven't, have you?" Sam couldn't help smiling as the blotchy went to full red. "Thought so."

Rod's mouth opened and closed a few times. His tray shook. Sam clapped him genially on the shoulder. "I'll talk to you later, okay?"

He didn't mean to, but before he left, he gave Rod a wink that was one hundred percent Dean.

It wasn't until he was nearly all the way back to his room that Sam realized he hadn't picked up any lunch.

It didn't matter. He wasn't hungry. If anything, he felt wound up, like he'd had way too much coffee.

He should be relieved that he'd found out who it was, but he wasn't. Rod? A killer and maybe even a cannibal? It didn't make sense. Rod could be annoying as hell, but even at his most annoying, he always seemed to mean well. He was just a normal guy.

And he'd been heartbroken about Debbie. Sam replayed what he'd said to Rod back at Ricker, and bit his lips together. That had been cruel. And he realized that he'd meant it to be cruel. He'd wanted it to _hurt_.

But that didn't matter. He had work to do.

And the sooner he did it, the sooner things would get back to normal.

* * *

"Thanks, Scott. I owe you one." And with that, Sam was done playing detective. Rod's roommate had been very helpful. Rod was at a study session for one of his Anthro exams, and should be coming back from the main quad about four-thirtyish.

Scott hadn't doubted Sam for a moment when Sam said he had a message from Debbie that he needed to get to Rod. In fact, he looked delighted to hear it.

It had only taken Sam a couple of hours to connect Rod with three of the victims besides Debbie. Peter Rakitzis was a friend of Rod's roommate, and had openly mocked Rod's taste in books, clothing, studies... In short, he'd been a real jerk.

Meagan Shaffer had taken Rod's kindness towards her as being 'creepy' and 'hitting on' her, and had had a very public blowup at rehearsal. Most of the theater group had been quick to take Rod's side, and while Meagan had finally apologized, no one thought it sounded all that sincere.

It made sense that Rod might want to scare them a little, just to get some revenge. They'd been bitten, but the bites probably hurt less than the treatment for them had been. From what Sam remembered, rabies shots sucked. And as big as Rod's dog form was, it was probably harder for him to keep the damage light than to do them serious harm.

There were signs of a possible breakdown in pattern with victim number three. Jay Whitehead and Rod had gone to the same high school. Jay was one of the jocks, Rod was one of the nerds. Apparently, that tension had gone by the boards when they got to college, but they weren't close. Maybe something had happened. Or maybe Rod was starting to look for excuses to dip into his magic.

Brady, of course, had pissed Rod off big time.

He didn't know if Chris Wolfe or Dan Iverson had any connection to Rod, but that didn't really matter, did it? Whatever they'd done, it didn't excuse what Rod had done to them.

At four thirty, Sam was waiting just behind the low wall that blocked most of the courtyard off from Santa Teresa Street. Rod wasn't the only one who knew how to lay in wait.

Time passed. Daylight started to fade.

At four fifty-five, he heard the hiss of the shuttle's door opening, and voices as more than one person got off. Shit. He hadn't counted on that, but he'd make do. And hopefully, Rod was actually _on_ the shuttle.

A minute later, two girls and a guy walked past him on their way back into the dorm. Freshmen. Sam didn't even know their names. He waited another minute, and still no Rod.

Then he heard footsteps. Slightly uneven footsteps. Rod walked past slowly. He was still limping, but not quite as badly as he was before. His backpack didn't look very full, but from the way he slumped, Sam would have thought it weighed a hundred pounds. Guilt could do that to you.

"Rod?" Sam kept his voice as soft, as gentle as possible. "Rod, I'm not going to hurt you again, but I need to talk to you."

Rod stopped. "Winchester?" It wasn't so much that he didn't move as it was that he very likely _couldn't_ move, he was so scared. "What's going on? What are you talking about?"

Sam cast a glance at Rod's leg. "What I'm talking about is what I did to your hip last night. I hit you pretty hard, didn't I?" Sam walked towards him, his strides short and slow. He held up his hands, patting the air slightly. "And I'm _really_ sorry about that, but Brady's my friend, okay? I know he can be a real--hey!"

Rod ran, hurt leg or no hurt leg. Sam was after him in a heartbeat. He nearly slammed into someone coming back into the dorm, and she held him up with her indignation and a demand for apologies before he could break away.

Sam chased Rod down Santa Teresa, gaining ground fast. The distance closed even more when Rod was stupid enough to look back at him. Good, good...

Cars slowed down, and he heard someone honk and someone else yell, but it didn't matter. His teeth bared as he increased speed. This bastard was _not_ getting away from him.

By the middle of the intersection of Santa Teresa and Los Arboles, they were only a few feet apart. Another second, and he could end this stupid chase with a flying tackle, but Rod shucked his backpack and threw it right at Sam's legs. Sam tripped and tangled, hitting the pavement hard on one knee and scraping the hell out of his palm. He used the momentum of the fall to get himself back to his feet, but Rod was ahead of him again. Sam shook off the pain as best he could, and kept running. Rod had reached the strip of land that ran between Los Arboles and Campus and was clambering over the two-rail fence.

"Damn it, Rod! I just want to talk!"

Rod paused long enough to look back. "Why the hell would I want to talk to _you_? Leave me alone!"

Then he dashed for a patch of brush that had grown wild and tangled along the wooded portion of the fence. It was poor cover, but Rod was desperate.

"I'm trying to _help_ you!" Sam called out. He drew closer.

"Sure you are," Rod snarled. "I don't need any more of your 'help,' or your friend's, either! You got that, Winchester?"

"You don't have to do this. Just give me the belt, and stop doing this."

Shrill, hysterical laughter. Rod was still thrashing around in the brush. Sam couldn't see him clearly, but it was a few minutes past sunset. "Why should I believe you?" He gasped. "You know what I did. To those two guys. To--"

It was one of the most awful sounds Sam had ever heard. Half sob, half howl.

"Oh, _God_... I--I only wanted to scare her. He said it would work. I was going to scare her, and then I was going to rescue her. I was going to be her hero, and I..."

The words became less and less intelligible.

"But then you tried to rip her face off!" The words whipped out, and Sam couldn't have stopped them if he tried. Anger boiled up to the surface, and he didn't _want_ to stop it. "She turned you down, and you fucking tore her face down to the _bone_."

There was a sound like _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry_ from the bushes. Rod was thrashing so hard it sounded like he was having convulsions.

 _Shit._ He'd almost forgotten what Bobby had said about the belt being the only thing Rod absolutely needed.

Sam was moving even before the black dog crashed out of the thicket. It missed him, but it collected itself and sprang at him again.

No time to think. Just instinct. Sam ducked to the side as Rod surged past him, and as he recovered, he swung out with a kick that caught Rod full in the belly.

Rod yelped and stumbled when he hit the ground, then turned on a dime and leapt. Sam brought his arm up fast, getting Rod in the throat before the jaws could get near his face.

Rod fell to the side, and he looked off towards Campus, as if thinking of making a run for it, but Sam was already lunging for him. No way was he going to let Rod get away. Rod snarled and went for him.

Claws raked into his side, but his fists connected with skull, with ribs.

"Don't you see what you're turning into?"

A monster. And Sam was going to take him down.

He was going to make this thing pay.

His next blow made the dog shriek in pain. Good.

Pay for what it had done to Debbie. To Dan. To Brady.

Sam went for him again. The dog tried to get away, but it couldn't put any weight on its front leg. Sam grabbed it by a loose fold of skin and slammed it down on his back.

Pay for dragging him back into this stupid life that he'd never chosen.

The dog _yiked_ as its head struck the ground.

Sam was breathing hard. He crouched over the dog and took hold of its neck. One twist was all it would take. One twist and it would be over. All over.

"Stop. Please." The words were barely discernable, but then, the jaw was the wrong shape for words.

Sam stopped cold, his heart going a million miles an hour up in his throat. What the hell was he doing?

Rod was on his back, belly up. Sam's hand was all but crushing his throat, forcing him to submit. His tail was tucked so tightly between his legs Sam could hardly see it.

This had to be enough. It had to be. Sam looked away from the glowing eyes, no longer wanting to see the sense of betrayal, of hurt, of fear.

"No. More." The words barely made it out past clenched teeth. Sam reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out his Swiss Army knife. He used his teeth to pry open one of the blades. "It's over, Rod."

Rod howled in terror.

There was a section of fur that was raised. A strip that lifted away from the rest of the dog's hide. Sam pulled it, hard, then with one swipe of the knife, cut it in two.

Sam yanked the belt away from Rod, and Rod fell back into human form. It looked like it hurt. Sam held up the belt like a battle trophy. "I'm taking this. No more, Rod. You hear me? No more."

Rod scooted back, wide-eyed. There was just enough light left for Sam to see that he'd wet his pants.

Sam stood up. "You have a choice, Rod. Either you stop this, or I stop you. Are we clear?"

Rod nodded. His face was all twisted up in misery, and he squeaked out a 'yes.'

"And I can hold you to that?"

"Yes." It was a sob.

"You promise?"

A strangled whimper that sounded affirmative enough.

"Good." Sam left him there. He wadded up the belt and shoved it under his sweatshirt, then headed back across the street without looking back. Before he got to his dorm, he had to stop and hunch over, hands on his knees, and wait until the heaves subsided and he no longer felt like throwing up everything he'd eaten that day.

* * *

Sam burned the belt at sunrise the next day, right by Dan Iverson's memorial. He should have found someplace where he was less likely to have someone ask what he was doing, but there wasn't much point. Too many people had seen him running after Rod.

For all he knew, he'd find Campus Police at his dorm when he returned, along with an invitation to leave.

He should be more worked up about that, but there was nothing but a lump of cold, heavy dread in his stomach. He couldn't bring himself to think any more about that, or what he would do next. There just wasn't any room left for those sorts of thoughts.

It took a long time for the belt to burn properly. When it had burned down to where it would fall to pieces if he picked it up, he smothered the embers with dirt. Then, he buried it completely, and not just because he needed to hide the evidence.

"Rest in peace, whoever you were." A stray dog who didn't have anyone to miss or mourn it, or a beloved pet whose family would never know what happened. Sam didn't know which was worse.

As for the memo book, he burned that without ceremony, then stomped out the fire. His mouth was a thin, tight line as he ground the ashes into the dirt.

When he got back to his dorm, there was no one waiting for him. No Campus Police, no phone messages, no emails. Just a note from Luis saying not to expect him back until Sunday night.

Sam was very tempted to go see if Brady was around, and maybe mooch a beer or three off of him. It would only be this once.

But that would mean talking to Brady. And Sam _really_ wasn't in the mood for that right now. Of course, if Brady wasn't around, Sam could just break in...

He groaned, clutching his head and collapsing onto the futon. He heard a _crack_ from the frame, but couldn't bring himself to give a shit.

Why hadn't he just broken into Rod's room? He could have picked the locks and stolen the belt and then...

But no. He had to be the white knight. He had to try to make Rod see reason. He could just imagine what Dad would say about that. Or about the fact that he just went and talked to Rod without taking the necessary safeguards. Or that he didn't think twice about confronting Rod so close to sundown.

What the hell was wrong with him? If he didn't know better, he'd accuse himself of hoping things would go south the way they had.

Well, never again. He'd been stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If he was making those kinds of mistakes, he had no business hunting.

Just as well he was out of the life, right?

But even now there was an echo of rage, a rush of dark and heady satisfaction as he replayed each strike of fist against flesh, each time he dodged a desperate bite, the satisfactory crunch of Rod's head against the ground, the look of sheer panic as Sam showed him just how wrong, wrong, fucking _wrong_ he was to piss away his humanity like that.

Then it passed, and all it left him with was a sour stomach and the desire to sleep for a solid week. No, there was something else that lingered, but it wasn't anything Sam wanted to look at right now.

It was over. He'd beaten sense into Rod. No one else would die. But Rod had almost died.

Sam had almost killed him.

But it was _over_. He wouldn't hunt any more. And Rod wouldn't use magic any more.

He just wished...

Sam wasn't sure _what_ he wished.

* * *

"Wait. You say he just up and left?" Bobby seemed surprised.

"Yeah. I found his belt, just like you said, and destroyed it. I don't see him for a couple of days, and when I go to check on him, his roommate says that he's taken all his crap out of their room and just left. No forwarding address, no note, no nothing. I've tried digging, but nothing came up."

There was a rumble of discontent on the other end of the line. Sam wondered if Bobby had any idea of how much he was _not_ saying about how he got hold of the belt.

"Hold on... you didn't see him for a couple of _days_? Why weren't you keeping an eye on him? I told you that once someone gets hold of that sort of magic, they find it don't exactly let go of them all that easy."

Sam closed his eyes and thought for a moment before replying. Bobby was right. He should have kept an eye on Rod, but Rod was the last person Sam wanted to see again. When the monster looked at you as if _you_ were the monster, it did funny things to your head.

"The last time I saw him, he wanted out. I think he hated what was happening to him, what he was becoming--I don't think he'd go back to that. And he promised me he wouldn't. It's just that..."

Sam could understand wanting to get away from everyone and everything that reminded you of all the things you hated about yourself.

"I know, I know. Leaving him alone wasn't the smartest thing I could have done, but--ah, shoot. Gotta go. Someone's at the door. I'll call you back."

He hung up even as Bobby was telling him to hold on just a damned second, but the knock was Brady's familiar five-beat knock, and it was a lot more welcome than the sound of sub-par lock picking.

Sam opened the door. Brady was reasonably upright, even if his shirt smelled a little beery. Sam wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad sign that it was stale beer.

"Don't worry, I'm not smashed," Brady said with no ill will.

"Didn't think you were," Sam said, stepping back from the door so Brady could come in. Brady wasn't exactly back to his old self, but the self-destructive stuff seemed to be letting up the past few days. As Sam guessed, nearly getting torn to bits had a sobering effect. Only time would tell, though. "What's up?"

Brady shrugged. He walked in and sat down on the futon, frowning a little at the extra give that hadn't been there the last time he stopped by.

"Just worried about you, man. That's all. I ran into Luis, and he said you'd been kinda down in the dumps the last few days." He looked up, and he was more clear-eyed than Sam had seen him in a while. "He's not the only one who noticed. You were off in la-la-land in Ab Psych study group today."

Sam almost made a crack that he'd just been in shock because Brady had actually showed up for study group for the first time in a week and a half.

He settled on the edge of his desk. "Yeah. I guess I kinda hit a rough patch."

"Yeah, I know how that goes. Anything I can do to help?"

Sam smiled, shaking his head as he made eye contact with the floor. "Nah, it's just something I've got to work through, you know? But thanks. It's just..." He was staring at the floor, but seeing so much else. "Just some stuff came up that reminded me of my old life."

"Ah?" Brady seemed eager to hear more, but this time he refrained from joking about 'sordid Winchester family details.'

"I know I don't talk about them much, and I that when I do it's only to slag on them, but..." he laughed softly. "Sometimes I believe all that shit, and sometimes I really mean it when I say it, but most of the time, it's just me trying to tell myself I don't miss them."

Brady was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, silently encouraging Sam to go on.

"But I do. Miss them. My brother, mostly. He can be an arrogant, childish, obnoxious _dick_ , but..."

The instant he even thought of putting the next part into words, it already sounded stupid, even to himself. Stupid, and inadequate. And even if he could say it, say what Dean was to him, it wouldn't change a single thing about what he said next.

"I know I'm better off without them," he said quietly.

"What?" Brady sounded shocked, almost dismayed. "You don't--"

"You think I like saying that? That I like admitting that for my own sake I need to stay the hell away from them?" Sam smacked his hand on the desk. "You know what my dad said when I told him I got a free ride to Stanford? He said that if I went, I shouldn't bother coming back. And you know what, I was absolutely _fine_ with that choice."

The anger felt good. It felt so damned _good_ , and the words kept boiling out even as Brady's eyes grew wider and wider.

"I am _never_ going back to that life. Ever. I may love my family, but what they did, the way they live, and what it was turning me into--"

He stopped, took a deep breath, and the anger was gone as quickly as it had surged, leaving him feeling strangely adrift.

"I don't like the person I was turning into," he told Brady, told himself, but all the conviction was gone from his voice. "I don't ever want to be that person."

Brady nodded, slowly. He seemed shaken by what Sam had said. Shaken, and troubled. Even his eyes seemed to go dark with worry. "Okay... uh, well." He stood up again. "I also wanted to thank you for getting me out of that jam the other night."

Sam shrugged. He didn't want to think about that night, or the night that followed it.

"I know this is gonna sound sick, but that was kinda _fun_." Brady grinned, but the grin dropped into something much more neutral as Sam refused to react. "Or... not. Um, anyway, you gonna be okay?"

This time, Sam did smile. A little sad and a little tired, but it was still a smile. If worrying about him helped Brady pull himself back on the rails, or at least back into the general vicinity of the tracks, then Sam didn't mind being worried about.

Brady clapped him on the shoulder, then left, still looking troubled but not saying anything more about it.

Sam didn't see him for a few days after that, and he got the distinct feeling that Brady was avoiding him. Sam did ask Matt if Brady was doing okay, and Matt said that Brady seemed to be getting back to something like normal--but that he was officially out of pre-med as of next quarter.

Then at lunch the day before exams, Sam was eating and studying when someone plopped a full tray down opposite him.

"All work and no play makes Sam a dull boy," Brady said. "Don't you think you've studied enough? I'm not going to clean up the mess if your head explodes."

"There's no such thing as over-prepared." Sam closed his notebook. "So, what's up with the silent treatment? I'm starting to wonder if I'm supposed to apologize for something."

"Just..." There was an eloquent shrug before Brady started tucking into his meal. "Some of what you were saying kinda rattled me, that's all. Got me thinking that maybe I was approaching some stuff all wrong. And let me tell you, you're not the only one with 'daddy issues,' Winchester. I think some of what's been going on is me being scared absolutely to fucking death of disappointing _my_ father." He laughed nervously. "Nice cliche, huh?"

Sam waited, but Brady didn't seem to be interested into going into any more detail than that.

"Anyhow, long and short is, I think I see what you were getting at, now."

"You do?"

Brady nodded. "You want to start over. Build something new. Build something that's _yours_. All new family. All new friends. Fresh start. Which reminds me..."

He gave Sam one of those wide, wide grins that mean he was either planning something very, very wonderful, or very, very awful.

"So tell me, Mister Cut His Family Ties--what are you doing for Christmas? And don't say 'nothing,' because I've got one hell of a 'something' lined up for you."

* * *

Two days later, with one exam left to go, Sam still wasn't sure about Brady's suggestion. It appealed, and yet it didn't. He had to give an answer by tomorrow, and since he couldn't make up his mind, it was probably safer to say 'thanks, but no thanks.' Besides, Luis had offered to bring Sam along again when he went back home to LA for the holidays. That could be fun. He'd had fun last Christmas. And Luis's family was a known quantity.

Yeah, that's what he would do.

But still, he couldn't quite bring himself to pick up the phone and make the call.

He was still lying on the futon and dithering when the phone rang.

"Sam?" It was Bobby. He sounded a bit subdued, and maybe just a few short steps away from being drunk. "Wanted to call you and let you know that I got someone to pick up that nagual case of yours."

Sam sat bolt upright. "Wait, what the hell do you mean, 'picked up the case?' I burned that damned pelt of his! There was nothing _to_ pick up!"

"Sam, you know as well as I do that if you take a man's weapon from him, first thing he'll do if he can't get it back is get himself a new one." Bobby should have been chewing him out for being so damned stupid, should have been reminding of how that kind of magic wouldn't let you go, but instead he was being very, very kind.

It should have been nice.

"From what Olivia told me, your pal stayed clean for two whole days before he started gathering up supplies. Then he found himself a stray dog. At least he didn't steal someone's pet, that's what I keep telling myself."

And all at once, Sam was in Flagstaff again, walking back to his shed with a bag of hamburgers and hearing a soon to be familiar _tick, tick, tick_ of claws on the pavement behind him. He was back there in an instant, turning around to see a skin-and-bones Golden Retriever standing there wagging its tail slowly and looking at him with anxious hope.

 _Do you want to be friends? I want to be friends. Let's be friends!_

"No. He wouldn't have done that."

"I'm afraid he did, Sam." Bobby was so damned gentle. Why didn't he yell? "Olivia found what was left of it."

"What was--but he promised!" Sam held very still, taking deep breaths and trying not to throw the phone across the room.

"From what Olivia said, the one thing he was sorry about in all this was killing that dog. But it's like I said--the danger of the kind of magic he was playing with is, when you want to let go of it, you find it won't let go of you. Hate to say it, but from what Olivia tells me, Rod was probably a lost cause by the time you got to him."

"What's he going to do now?"

There was a long, long pause. "I'm sorry, Sam. Olivia tried to end it the way you would've wanted, and I believe her when she says that, but it also sounds like he didn't give her a lot of choice in the matter. He was long gone by the time she found him, worse than when you saw him."

Sam almost said _I can't accept that_ , but he would have to. The only other alternative was that Rod hadn't been a lost cause, and that Sam had failed him.

If he hadn't lost control. If he'd been able to talk Rod down from his high. If Rod hadn't looked at him like _he_ was the monster.

"Olivia said she's going to try to find out whatever set him off around Thanksgiving. She'll be digging around his hometown, but she was wondering if maybe something had happened at Stanford and if you could--"

"No. I can't do this anymore, Bobby. I won't."

There was another long silence. He could imagine Bobby trying to decide if he should press the point or not. There was a long sigh, barely audible.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I'm really sorry it had to end like this."

Sam took a deep breath. Then a second. Then a third.

"Thanks. Look, if you happen to talk to Dad..."

"Sorry to say, John and I ain't speaking much these days." There was a sharp, rueful laugh. "Long story, and one you probably don't need to hear right now."

"Oh." He almost asked, just the same.

"I won't say a word. Goodbye, Sam. And good luck. I mean that."

It was the kind of goodbye that was a last goodbye. That was what he wanted, right? What he wanted more than anything?

"Goodbye, Bobby."

He pushed the 'end' button on the phone and returned it to the charger. It lacked the satisfying finality of placing a heavy handset back down on a cradle.

The push of a button just wasn't enough to signify the ending of an old life.

What he needed was something to signify the start of a new one. He got out the number Brady had given him.

Christmas with Luis's family had been fun, but this time he didn't need a known quantity. Last Christmas, he had spent the whole day thinking about Dean and Dad. A _fresh_ start, Brady had said.

One of Brady's friends had family not far from Palo Alto--an aunt or something--and that family had told said friend to bring home any of her classmates who found themselves stranded for the holidays. It wouldn't be anything fancy, but it would be fun.

And weren't holiday celebrations like this originally meant to mark the end of something old and the start of something new?

Goodbye to the darkness, hello to the light.

He picked up the phone and dialed.

"Hello? Is this Jenn?" He heard the answer and laughed ruefully. He smacked his forehead loud enough to be heard on the other end of the line.

"Right. Sorry... I'm so sorry about that, but Brady's handwriting really sucks. Anyhow, let me try that again. Hello, _Jess_ , this is Sam Winchester. Brady may have told you... Yeah, That's right." He laughed. "I'm _that_ Sam. Anyhow, he was saying something about Christmas?"

He meant it to be a quick call, but he didn't hang up until an hour later.

When he did hang up, it was with the sense that his life as a hunter was over, and that something new, something wonderful was about to begin.

He promised himself he would never look back.

* * *

Six years later, and it felt like the same conversation all over again.

"--oh, that'd be you," Bobby snarled.

Only neither one of them was the same person any more.

Or maybe Sam was the same--only he was finally able to look that person square in the face and see him for who he was.

And because of that, he couldn't be the one to handle this. If Bobby didn't already understand, there was no way Sam could explain.

 _Even at Stanford, you knew. You knew there was something dark inside of you._

Or maybe it was more that he didn't want to explain. Sam had finally figured out something he should have realized years ago.

(When the monster looks at you as if _you_ were the monster...)

If only it hadn't been easier to deny it than deal with it. So many things might have ended differently than they had.

"I can't, Bobby. I'm sitting this one out."

Bobby started to protest, but it wouldn't do any good. Sam said he had to go, said that he was sorry, and hung up while Bobby was still talking.

When he was younger, Sam remembered desperately wanting to be all grown up. Like Dad. Like Dean. He had felt so responsible, so _adult_ when Dean started teaching him how to shoot. He had been so proud when Dad finally let him help out on a hunt after a solid year of pleading, sulks, and logic.

Now, though...

He missed being a child. He missed knowing that the grownups would be there to fix things. It was the sort of thing he should be ashamed of, but it only made him sad, because he never had that sort of childhood in the first place. Never had that sort of innocence.

Far from it.

That was why this time, he _would_ sit things out.

There were some mistakes he would never make again. Mistakes like assuming normal had ever been an option.

 _You can't run from yourself,_ Jess said.

No, but he wouldn't delude himself, either.

 _Things are never gonna change with you. Ever._

Maybe. Maybe not. But no matter what, Sam was going to do everything he could to save people from monsters.

Especially if one of those monsters happened to be himself.


End file.
